The Fire Dept. is backing away from its theory that a homeless man caused yesterday’s track fire that trapped 4,000 riders yesterday.
But, no matter what the cause, Councilman John Liu, the chairman of the council’s transportation committee, says it could have been avoided.
"This major disruption – like many such disruptions suffered by New Yorkers in the past – could have been prevented if the MTA had stopped its decade-long policy of deferring maintenance in our transit system. Unfortunately, the MTA made the situation far worse: (1) through it's sheer inability to communicate with riders (the MTA even admitted in City Council testimony that communicating with the public is not a priority) and failure to upgrade the PA system. (2) Even if it has a plan on paper, the MTA has not provided transit workers with the necessary training and resources to handle the increasing number of disruptions on our transportation network."
In particular, riders were frustrated at the lack of info as they waited on the train. As for the PA system, MTA New York City Transit spokesman James Anyansi says:
“Customers usually complain. It’s [conductor updates] normally every two or three minutes but they [conductors] don’t want to get repetitious. .. But I guess they [riders] were wondering what is going on.”
-- Chuck Bennett amNY.com
